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The best way to keep a good perspective on the important things in life and avoid coming down with a case of Potomac Fever is to come home every weekend, as I do, to keep in touch with Nebraskans throughout our beautiful state.
In my travels from Sidney to Scottsbluff; from Nebraska City to Falls City; from Auburn to Valentine, it is comforting to know that if an emergency arises excellent medical services are never far away. We are fortunate to have doctors, nurses and hospitals in rural Nebraska who are every bit as professional and prepared as they are in Omaha and Lincoln or even Washington, DC.
This high level of medical care in rural Nebraska doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of hard work to make sure that rural health care providers in Nebraska and other rural states are treated equitably with their urban counterparts. Washington regularly tries to cut funding for rural health care providers. That may be hard to understand, but as I’ve said before, when it comes to rural life, Washington just doesn’t get it, so I have to regularly fight to make sure Nebraskans have the degree of medical help they deserve.
I am a member of a group called the Senate Rural Health Caucus which has just introduced a bill, S. 3500, known as the Rural Hospital and Provider Equity Act, which will help assure equitable treatment for rural physicians, nurses, home health care providers and hospitals.
The new Medicare prescription drug law made temporary adjustments to compensate rural hospitals fairly but those adjustments are about to expire. Our bill not only extends the provisions but takes additional steps to level the playing field between rural and urban hospitals. Rural providers are often put at a financial disadvantage because their Medicare reimbursement levels are less than those in other parts of the country. It’s unfair and puts rural hospitals at risk.
The bill also helps equalize Medicare payments between rural and urban physicians by extending provisions set to expire January 1, 2007. Although rural physicians put as much or even more time, skill, and intensity into their work as physicians in urban areas, rural physicians will be paid less for their work unless this provision is extended.
The bill also will help Critical Access Hospital labs by allowing Medicare reimbursement for specimens that are taken in a nursing home or rural health clinic. These hospitals provide laboratory services in rural health clinics and nursing homes in outlying communities, as well as in home-health settings. The elimination of cost-based reimbursement may make it prohibitive for them to continue offering off-site testing. As a result, Medicare beneficiaries will have to travel to a Critical Access Hospital to have lab specimens drawn placing a burden on patients, especially the sick and elderly.
Preserving our rural way of life isn’t easy in Washington, DC, but I am committed to continue the fight.
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